Honestly, I was going to leave out my review of this game to see where it goes for the future. However, if you watched the game awards you might have noticed that Bethesda deliberately paid for ADVERTISEMENT space within the award show. They didn't even make a new trailer for it either, they just recycled the same launch trailer with fake reviews and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ marketing. Bethesda must have assumed that their flop wouldn't even get "Best Shovelware 2023" so they gummed up the rest of the show by including an advertisement for a game that already flew off the shelves 3 months ago.

That is what tipped me over the edge on this review. I put about 50 (10 on steam) hours into the game and just couldn't find a rhythm. It feels like walking through a depressive fog playing this game for more than an hour. You spend most of the early game trying to figure out what to do, then you realize that 95% of the game's travel can be skipped entirely by abusing the fast travel system. This is nice to me, except it's painfully obvious that the game was initially built around forcing the player to travel everywhere manually, making large swaths of gameplay redundant or not needed because of how the fast travel system was integrated later in development. There is so much copying and pasting that outside of the main "concourse" areas of travel you just feel like your walking the same paths over and over and over.

But, ok, lets take a step back. It's not all bad. What makes a good Bethesda game? Most people would answer "world building", "story", and "loot".

World Building? 8/10. They tried their best and honestly the world is pretty immersive at times. Most of the world feels cohesive enough to exist, and it can keep you entertained with lore / text / hidden content for a bit. It's pretty hard to drop the world building ball, and at times the copy pasting settlements do break that a bit.

Story? 3/10. Honestly, the worst story that Bethesda has come up with to date. At no point during the main missions did I feel even the slightest bit excited to progress the main story. It feels very bland, like it was written by 15 unpaid interns working 60 hours a week. You'll get more enjoyment out of just playing in the sandbox than anything else.

Loot? 6/10. Good loot. Good stats. Little power ups. Cool Weapons. Cool gear. etc.

That's... that's it. Theres not really much else to the game to be honest.

"What about spaceships? What about base building? What about etcetcetcetc?"
Everything else is so bland that it really doesn't stick out to me enough to talk about. I mean *really* bland. The whole game is a mixed bag of "meh". Sure you can build some weird ship designs, or make a cool base, but the joy is lost after the first couple of times you build a ship or a base. Nothing is making me want to come back to it.

Idk man. If you're on the fence about this already, you've probably got your answer from all the other reviews saying the same thing. It's just disappointing. Nobody was expecting Star Citizen / Elite Dangerous / No Mans Sky, but everyone WAS expecting Skyrim level everything else. This whole game feels like they took a step back a decade in technical feats and slapped on "Generic Story 15™" to sell it, and then everyone bought it. We're all suckers here.

Honestly, I was going to leave out my review of this game to see where it goes for the future. However, if you watched the game awards you might have noticed that Bethesda deliberately paid for ADVERTISEMENT space within the award show. They didn't even make a new trailer for it either, they just recycled the same launch trailer with fake reviews and bullshit marketing. Bethesda must have assumed that their flop wouldn't even get "Best Shovelware 2023" so they gummed up the rest of the show by including an advertisement for a game that already flew off the shelves 3 months ago. That is what tipped me over the edge on this review. I put about 50 (10 on steam) hours into the game and just couldn't find a rhythm. It feels like walking through a depressive fog playing this game for more than an hour. You spend most of the early game trying to figure out what to do, then you realize that 95% of the game's travel can be skipped entirely by abusing the fast travel system. This is nice to me, except it's painfully obvious that the game was initially built around forcing the player to travel everywhere manually, making large swaths of gameplay redundant or not needed because of how the fast travel system was integrated later in development. There is so much copying and pasting that outside of the main "concourse" areas of travel you just feel like your walking the same paths over and over and over. But, ok, lets take a step back. It's not all bad. What makes a good Bethesda game? Most people would answer "world building", "story", and "loot". World Building? 8/10. They tried their best and honestly the world is pretty immersive at times. Most of the world feels cohesive enough to exist, and it can keep you entertained with lore / text / hidden content for a bit. It's pretty hard to drop the world building ball, and at times the copy pasting settlements do break that a bit. Story? 3/10. Honestly, the worst story that Bethesda has come up with to date. At no point during the main missions did I feel even the slightest bit excited to progress the main story. It feels very bland, like it was written by 15 unpaid interns working 60 hours a week. You'll get more enjoyment out of just playing in the sandbox than anything else. Loot? 6/10. Good loot. Good stats. Little power ups. Cool Weapons. Cool gear. etc. That's... that's it. Theres not really much else to the game to be honest. "What about spaceships? What about base building? What about etcetcetcetc?" Everything else is so bland that it really doesn't stick out to me enough to talk about. I mean *really* bland. The whole game is a mixed bag of "meh". Sure you can build some weird ship designs, or make a cool base, but the joy is lost after the first couple of times you build a ship or a base. Nothing is making me want to come back to it. Idk man. If you're on the fence about this already, you've probably got your answer from all the other reviews saying the same thing. It's just disappointing. Nobody was expecting Star Citizen / Elite Dangerous / No Mans Sky, but everyone WAS expecting Skyrim level everything else. This whole game feels like they took a step back a decade in technical feats and slapped on "Generic Story 15™" to sell it, and then everyone bought it. We're all suckers here.